Wet And Wild Ibiza

This Tiny Mediterranean Island Off The Coast Of Spain Offers Round-the-clock Revelry.

December 16, 1987|By Lisa Bannon, W/Fairchild Publications.

WRITING FROM IBIZA, SPAIN. — Just before dawn, the late-night club Amnesia is emptying out and the crowd spills into the parking lot to retrieve Vespas and Santana jeeps for the next stop on the Ibiza party circuit. Daylight is an hour away but nobody`s yawning. In fact, everyone is now revving up for Glory, the early morning club down the street, which doesn`t even open until 6 a.m. By this time most of Los Cabezas Cuadradas-or ubiquitous tourists-have straggled off to bed.

By 7 a.m. all that usually remains are los marchosos, the island`s young glitterati who are known to linger at Glory`s, dancing and drinking Coco Locos until 10 or 11 a.m., planning parties for that night or deciding where to dock the yacht that afternoon when the cycle begins again.

On Ibiza, a tiny Mediterranean island off the coast of Spain, no one owns an alarm clock, uses a Filofax or ever even heard of a car phone. Time is irrelevant and so are last names. ``There is no Saturday or Sunday or Monday on Ibiza. Every day is the same,`` says Vincente Hernandez, owner of The End, a trendy boutique in Ibiza`s main town. ``Here nobody says anything about who you are or what you do. Our motto is live and let live.``

The rhythm of nonstop revelry combined with the beauty of the island`s beaches, inlets and secluded mountain hideways has made Ibiza the undisputed pleasure axis of the Mediterranean. Once an isolated Spanish land of farmers and fishermen, the 22-mile by 16-mile strip of white sand and lush forest is now a paradise for those seeking sun, sand and serious social activity.

Perhaps because so little attention is paid to titles, or maybe in spite of it, the list of European aristocracy with homes here reads like an international social register. The Duchess of Alba, Princess Tesa of Bavaria, Countess Jacqueline de Ribes, Princess Loretta Wittgenstein, Mimmo Ferreti and Michael Pearson all keep-spacious quarters in remote spots for Ibicenco entertaining from April through October.

But it`s in August when party mania blows in from the continent. Lavish fiestas are held either in private homes and yachts or at Ku, a club that is the gravitational center of island nightlife. Over the summer, George Hamilton, Princess Diana, Gianni Versace and Claude Montana swept in. Harrison Ford threw a still-talked-about birthday bash at Ku.

``If you really want to have fun, it`s the only place,`` says Montana, who flies in from Paris once a year to let loose in the clubs and on the beaches. ``It`s a fun, no-sleep place. Young people love to go out with the most outrageous looks and I think it`s the place in Europe where there are the most beautiful people from all corners of the earth.``

The beautiful people curiously cohabit with the hordes of British and German tourists who invade the island a la package tour during the summer months. In July and August an average 60 bulging charters unload up to 10,000 daily at Ibiza`s airport, which has been expanded five times in the last 25 years to accommodate the onslaught. Tourist development has reared its ugly head with such ferocity that cranes and construction sites have become as much a part of the island skyline as Ibiza`s famous 16th-Century fortress in the old town. This year 1,300,000 thrill-seekers will visit the island, whose permanent population is 70,000.

Aside from the tourists, much of the island is peopled by transplants of San Franciso`s Haight Ashbury. Here is where the barefoot flower children of the `60s have drifted-going to seed in Ibiza. ``Los hippies,`` as the Spanish call them, live in huts and caves around the island where they fish, sing and sunbathe their days away.

Presiding over the Fellini-esque collection of outsiders are the locals, the Ibicencos, who for 2,000 years have been kindly submitting to foreign invasions of a harsher, but not so dissimilar, sort. Hannibal`s brother was the first to ravage the island, in 217 B.C., and has been followed by every army in the neighborhood since then. Today it`s the fun-seekers. The islanders say it could be worse.

ROOM FOR EVERYONE

The blend of chic and bacchanal makes Ibiza seem like a cross between Bardot`s St. Tropez and Daytona Beach at spring break. The secret of the Spanish paradise leaked out in the `60s, and ever since then Ibiza has become a magnet for fun seekers from every social and economic strata. ``The beauty of Ibiza is there`s room for everybody. The pace is very easy, no one interferes,`` days princess Smilja Mihajlovich, the grand dame of party organizing on the island. ``The Agnellis are here with the workmen from Manchester and the secretaries from Munich. Everyone mixes.``